European lander prepares to reach Ryugu asteroid
A European-made lander tasked with extracting samples from an asteroid orbiting the Sun some 300 million km away is expected to make landfall on Wednesday.
The MASCOT lander, a small 10kg box built by the German (DLR) and French (CNES) space agencies, left Earth in December 2014 onboard the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft.
On Wednesday, shortly before 4 am CEST, MASCOT is expected to separate itself from the probe and set up a few minutes later on the surface of Ryugu, a near-Earth asteroid orbiting around the Sun.
Euronews
https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/02/european-lander-prepares-to-reach-ryugu-asteroid
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20181003-00000040-mai-sctch